Improbable Women: Five Who Explored the Middle East

15. Bright and Brave

165 15 Bright and Brave There are no elements of financial deprivation in the story of Gertrude Bell; her grandfather was Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, ironmaster, colliery owner, scientist, and creator of a massive fortune that nourished the family past Gertrude’s lifetime. Her father, Sir Hugh Bell, was Sir Lowthian’s eldest son. This is not to say that Gertrude was extravagant. She gave every indication of one who was careful with her money, but she also traveled extensively on what were clearly expensive trips without an earned income to bear the cost. So though Gertrude was born into the same degree of wealth as Hester Stanhope, her life was largely devoid of the financial limitations and anxieties that had burdened Hester. Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell (she usually did not use the name Margaret) was born on July 14, 1868, at Washington Hall, County Durham, home of her grandfather. Her mother was Mary Shield, the daughter of John Shield of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Three years later at the birth of her brother Maurice, the family was living in a new home they called Red Barns, which they had built at Redcar on the Yorkshire coast. The house, now bounded by a residential neighborhood and a railroad cut, still possesses the veneer of a stately home, but this quickly evaporates in its current life as a boys boarding school become hotel with a neighborhood pub on the ground floor. The hotel rooms are in the structure that must have been the children’s wing when Gertrude was a child. The main part of the house now provides housing to some of the hotel staff, but remains largely unchanged from its wealthier days with 166 • Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell rich woodwork on the walls of the living room and entry and on the ceiling over the main staircase. The garden, now unkempt but with railway cut hidden, still provides a hint of its former glory. Beyond the railway is a large public park that in Gertrude’s day was part of the estate. They had been in the house less than a year when Maurice was born on March 29, 1871. Mary, who had been described as frail, never recovered from the effort and died of pneumonia at age twenty-seven. While her father grieved, Gertrude and Maurice were delivered to the care of Hugh’s sister Ada and then to a series of governesses. This continued even after Hugh’s remarriage five years later to Florence Olliffe, a friend of his sisters Maisie and Ada. The adventurous Gertrude was apparently a challenge, not the least of which was to separate her and her brother from the ocean. On one occasion, a German lady named Miss Klug returned from the beach exhausted and empty-handed, to complain that when she called them to go in, they had run behind a boat and then had dodged from one side to the other as she had tried to apprehend them until she finally gave up and returned for reinforcements. Maurice was the prototype for unnumbered Arab guides, bodyguards , cooks, muleteers, and camel drivers as Gertrude honed her leadership skills. Having guided him to the top of a nine-foot wall, she ordered him to jump as she did, and while she usually landed on her feet, her brother rarely did. On another occasion she led Maurice in climbing to the top of the greenhouse. While she was successful in making it to the top and down the opposite side, Maurice fell through the glass. Gertrude’s lack of fear of heights was fostered by her father. Her stepsister Elsa tells of one summer when they were adding to Red Barns and Gertrude was following progress on the project by climbing all over the scaffolding and unfinished walls. She says that her mother told of her horror at seeing Hugh climbing a ladder to an upper floor with a two- and a three-year-old each tucked under an arm. These two happened to be Gertrude’s stepsister Elsa and Bright and Brave • 167 stepbrother Hugo, but it illustrates her father’s attitude, and while climbing is a reasonably common childhood adventure, in Gertrude’s case it foreshadowed a career as a renowned alpine mountaineer. In spite of her daring nature, Gertrude was an obedient child, close to her stepmother and extremely close to her father. Her parents , for their part, were...